KARACHI: Business Recorder in collaboration with Maersk Pakistan Limited on Thursday organized a panel of experts to talk about the current hot topic ‘supply chain, and how the country can deal with operational challenges in years to come.’

The round table titled: ‘Optimizing Supply Chains – From Field to Shelf’ was attended and addressed by heads of supply chains from different leading local and multinational firms including National Foods, PepsiCo, Philip Morris, Shan Foods, Friesl and Campina, Engro, Shujabad Agro (Eva Oil), Reckitt Benckiser Pakistan, P&G Pakistan, Hilal Food Private Limited, and Loreal Pakistan.

The event held here at a local hotel, was moderated by journalist and television host Sidra Iqbal.

This insightful conference covered a number of topics pertaining to the supply chain issues, Pakistan’s FMCG sector and its evolution in the last few years, evolving brand challenges, consumer behaviours, industry trends, impacts of uncertainties on Supply Chain Operations.

The panellists were of the view that global business landscape has been changed in recent years. Covid-19 pandemic, devastating floods, and Russia-Ukraine conflict have left some important lessons for businesses to learn. Elaborating, they said the firms should focus on local linkages, digitization of their businesses, go for self-dependence, strengthen own resources.

They also discussed in depth on logistics and digitization, importance of sustainability for the industry and businesses, and its impact on business.

Without a smooth supply chain process, they said we may not be able to add real value to the national wealth and economy.

They underscored the need of end-to-end visibility in order to manage supply chain effectively, and this can only be possible through supply chain digitization.

Representatives from food sector said availability of crops remained the major uncertainty during the Covid period. The hardest thing during Covid was to get resource even from abroad. This made the firms realize that how indigenous crops are important. “We have seen spike in the prices of edible oils during recent years. For FMGC companies, pricing is everything, but the uncertainty and volatility in pricing were affecting businesses. When you can’t predict crop and price, it becomes extremely difficult how to price a product,” said one of the food sector representatives.

Representatives of Business Recorder and Maersk Pakistan Limited were present on this occasion.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022